Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
3.2.5 Central Asia
Central Asia exhibits a pronounced tendency toward heavy internet censorship.
For example, the same ''event-based filtering'' practiced by the Belarussian
government occurred in Kyrgyzstan during the 2005 parliamentary elections there.
In Uzbekistan, ISP providers must operate under government control, the gov-
ernment's web filter, Uzpak, enjoys a monopoly over international connections,
monitors all internet traffic in the country, and the government often shuts down
uzbekistanerk.org and birlik.net, the Web sites belonging to the largest opposition
parties (Privacy International
2003
). In Kazakhstan, a journalist from the news
website kub.kz, Kazis Toguzbayev, was given a 2 year prison sentence in 2008 for
posting an article accusing the regime of protecting the killers of opposition leader
Altynbek Sarsenbayev. Invoking an older Soviet tradition, Uzbek internet jour-
nalists who publish criticisms of the government are occasionally forced into
psychiatric hospitals. The dictator of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, another
of Reporters Without Borders's ardent ''enemies of the Internet,'' strove to keep
that country hermetically sealed from the outside world via a national intranet,
although his successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, vowed to open it up to
the global internet. This promise was belied, however, by the presence of gov-
ernment soldiers at the doors of internet cafes (Eurasianet.org
2007
). Cybercafes in
which customers attempt to access banned websites are routinely closed.
McGlinchey and Johnson (
2007
) studied the divergent censorship paths found
in the region and concluded that in Central Asian countries where international aid
groups and NGOs provide assistance with the internet (e.g., infrastructure fund-
ing), governments tend to be more permissive and less restrictive about internet
access. They argue (p. 275) that
where international NGOs and bilateral and multilateral donors provide capital and
assistance in drafting legislation, such as in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and to a lesser extent
Uzbekistan, the formal regulatory framework is more open, clearly articulated, and per-
missive of electronic media. … ICT development demands ongoing negotiations with and
aid from willing foreign partners. And it is the iterative nature of this relationship that
provides Western donors the ability to ensure conditionality—that is substantive reform—
in return for ICT aid.
The Nazarbaev regime in Kazakhstan, for example, which can use its oil and
gas revenues to purchase ICT equipment, has received less assistance from foreign
organizations and has thus been relatively free to curtail internet access. None-
theless, since 2009 Kazakhstan has enacted draconian censorship laws to the
internet and traditional media alike (Lambroschini
2011
) under the Kazakh
Agency for Information Technology and Communications. ISPs in the country
must retain electronic records of the internet activities of clients. A Kazakh
journalist from the news website kub.kz, Kazis Toguzbayev, was given a 2-year
prison sentence in 2008 for posting an article accusing the regime of protecting the
killers of opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev.
